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CHAPTER FIVE
IFGERALDINEHADknown what Lionel had planned, she thought crossly some hours later, she would have flatly refused to help him.
She’d woken up as the plane started its descent into Spain. She stared out at white buildings clinging to hillsides that gleamed in the September sun. As the plane got lower and lower, there were rolling fields, vineyards and olive orchards, and then a grand sort of Spanish-style house that took over the better part of a valley hidden away between two rolling, unspoiled hills.
It was so beautiful that it actually made her chest hurt.
If she was more fanciful, she might have allowed herself to brood on the notion that it felt like coming home—but she wasn’t. So she didn’t.
“I have to let my mother know where I am,” Geraldine informed Lionel once the plane’s wheels hit the ground. When really, she just wanted to know if the baby was okay. It wasn’t that she didn’t think her mother could care for Jules, because of course she did. It was just that she liked doing the caring herself. “Otherwise, as I said—”
“Yes, yes. Alarms will sound, and so on.” He did that thing with his hand that was somehow an invitation even while it was dismissive. Maybe aristocratic sorts learned such things while ordering the nursery staff about from their cradles. “By all means, call whoever you like.”
And then made it clear that he had no intention of giving her any privacy to do so.
“What you mean you’ve gone off toSpain?” Her mother had sounded astonished by that news when she picked up the call. And fair enough. Geraldine could hear Jules babbling to herself in the background, sounding sunny and happy, and had to close her eyes against the piercing sort of longing that washed over her. Especially because her mother was still talking. “I thought we came here for a very specific purpose. Not a sudden Grand Tour when we’ve barely landed.”
“Wonderful,” Geraldine had said brightly. “I let you know when I’ll be back just as soon as I can.”
And then she’d finished the call, feeling guilty that she’d abandoned both her motherandthe baby.
“I prefer business arrangements,” Lionel had said in that dark, stirring manner of his, as if he was not only aware of all the little fires that kicked up inside of her at the sound of his voice, but intended to light them with his own hands. As if he knew every last contour of the things she felt, when as far as she could tell, he was made of ice. “As I said.”
She made herself smile. “Once again, you seem to be missing the part where this is something humans do. Having relationships are what life is supposed to be about.”
“Alternatively, you could arrange your life to serve you,” Lionel had replied. “This is what I choose to do.”
And then he had shown her what he meant.
She had walked down the folding stairs that served as the plane’s Jetway to find herself on yet another private airfield, this one even more remote than the one they’d stood on back in Italy. And she may or may not have dreamed about being that close to him, hardly aware of the words that were coming out of her mouth because she was too busy gazing up at him, wondering what it would feel like to surge up a little higher and press her mouth to his—
But she had very little time to reflect on the difference between Italian and Spanish private airfields, because she was swept up into a noisy crowd almost immediately.
They all spoke too quickly, and not to her. They were all dressed in black, and despite Geraldine’s talk about human behavior, they appeared to be treating her as if she was something like cattle.
Her hair was let down by someone, while another held strands between his fingers, letting out a stream of remarks that she did not have to speak Spanish to know were not exactly admiring. Worse, another man staggered back and clasped a hand to his chest in what appeared to be not entirely feigned shock at the sight of her dress. So dramatically that he had to be propped up by the woman beside him, who spoke rapidly to him, as if attempting to convince him to continue breathing long enough to fix the situation.
It did not take long to understand that there was indeed a situation, and the situation was her.
“If I wanted a makeover,” Geraldine snapped over the din, finding Lionel’s slightly too amused gaze as he climbed into a separate, clearly far quieter car beside hers, “I would give myself one.”
“No need,” he told her smoothly. “We will meet for dinner, after my people determine whether or not miracles can be performed. And then we will go from there, you and I.”
She had felt rather more let down than she should have when he’d actually got into his vehicle and drove off into the spectacular countryside that surrounded them.
Geraldine was forced to acknowledge that she was a little more focused on Lionel Asensio than she should have been. When she knew full well what kind of man he really was. And worse, what he was capable of doing. Or not doing.
“Do any of you speak English?” she asked once she’d been packed into her own car, where the horde descended upon her once again.
“Of course we all speak English,” said the woman nearest her, not bothering to look up as she inspected Geraldine’s nails. “But until we have something nice to say, we will speak Spanish.”
And she was as good as her word.
Geraldine found herself carted off to some kind of small cottage. Though it could only be called such a thing—small or cottage—when considered next to that sprawling house she had seen on the flight in. It had more rooms than her tidy little two-bedroom house that she’d been so pleased to buy a few years ago, so she could feel like an adult at last.
It had taken Jules to make her realize that there was so much more to feeling like an adult than the little house, if that was what she wanted. Geraldine had always thought that she didn’t want those things. That a life of books and friends, quiet joys, and the pleasure of her own company were enough. They had been enough.
Certainly the fast, loud, high life that Seanna had led had never appealed.
